Love this so much - 4 Slovenian leaders, a massive national project that is still ready for the PT. Congratulations
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Spilak is Spilak and will score a lot. Will see if he can become the first to win 3 Tours.
Mohoric with his great downhill will have a similar season to Sagan, in the matter of overperformances, not likely to dominate like the Slovak did, but will be a really great scorer despite being 81 yet.
Polanc will like the more hillier cobbled races, and despite having no support he can surprise with some good results in those races.
Very nice team overall, maybe too much unmaxed riders for a first PT season, but we'll see if it works
@dev4ever: make it 4 though yeah we're proud of that
@Atlantius: Thanks! We are able to compete, but whether it will be enough is a different story. We are proud of having kept our identity here though
@Yellow Jersey: We always had to have that plan surely. He can, and we heavily build on him fitting well with his supporting cast indeed. Especially looking at the Tour de France as our big goal.
@redordead: I am almost sure you're building a similarly sustainable Slovenian project from what I've seen.
@jandal7: Ready or not, here we come. Slovenia trying to storm the Pro Tour.
@Aquarius97: We hope so, but against Taaramae odds may not lay at the defending champion. All will depend on whether we can distance the fat Estonian in the first week over the hills.
Well, Sagan not only had his downhill skills. While it was often suspected, I am not too sure about the influence of the downhill stat (especially at the exponential influence on averages!). However, we built a supporting cast that is exactly pointing at these plans of using that downhill advantage.
Polanc will face tough times against higher level opponents I fear. Cobbled races in PT are a lot less appealing that in PCT, and shouldn't exactly favor the punchy skillset of Polanc. Maybe he can be up for 1-2 surprises though.
On the topic on unmaxed riders thats the burden we are having to take with developing Slovenian riders to make them capable of riding in the mg, even if they only end up at CT domestique level (as most of our unmaxed balcans may do). Still that is what we wanna do.
Going full Slovenian and yet improving the team, while another new team from Slovenia came into existence is quite an achievement! Spilak will be boss as always. Him and Kump should propel you to a good place in the division. Mohoric maxed out will be a great asset too.
Will be following your first season in the PT with interest
Badaling International: The hilly opener in China saw the first outing of our squad. Matej Mohoric took one step further in his development, showing off his quality finishing 13th. Stealing his show though was Eesti prospect Martin Laas, who took a brilliant day to finish a place ahead of him.
1
Caio Godoy
EA Vesuvio
5h31'30
2
Simone Ponzi
Hugo Boss
+ 49
3
Jan Bakelants
Grieg - Eftel
s.t.
4
Peter Sagan
Moser - Sygic
s.t.
5
Toms Skujins
Evonik - ELKO
s.t.
12
Martin Laas
Isostar - Slovenje
s.t.
13
Matej Mohoric
Isostar - Slovenje
s.t.
Man of the race: Martin Laas Manager Satisfaction Rate: 5.5/10
Tour of Qatar: Kump worked on his game in the offseason as well, trying to be a competitive World Tour sprinter this season. Alexander Roman prooved to be our breakaway hunter, and could join on some occasions as on stage 3. Our Arrow from Doljenska went very unlucky on the first stages missing out on bonus points very closely (11th, 11th, 13th, 15th). After we missed out on the breakaway stage 5, we could only try to limit our losses on the epilogue. As our best finisher, Kump could at least bring us op to 16th GC. Still a disappointing outing for us.
1
John Degenkolb
Iberia - Team Degenkolb
14h57'42
2
Sam Bewley
Moser - Sygic
+ 10
3
Bryan Coquard
Festina - Dexia
+ 12
4
Peter Kennaugh
Air France - KLM
+ 23
5
Jonas Ahlstrand
Volvo acc. by Spotify
+ 36
16
Marko Kump
Isostar - Slovenje
+ 59
Man of the race: Aleksandar Roman Manager Satisfaction Rate: 1/10
Copenhagen-Malmo TTT: As the first starting team our squad did very well to set a good time. With a harmonic effort we could crack into the Top20 as 18th, some extra points we certainly didn't expect!
1
Gazelle
1h10'31 (1)
2
Team UBS
+ 2 (2)
3
Bennelong - Mitchelton
+ 2 (3)
4
Team Tinkoff
+ 5 (4)
5
cycleYorkshire
+ 9 (5)
18
Isostar - Slovenje
+ 1'52 (18)
Manager Satisfaction Rate: 9/10
Tirreno - Adriatico: Mohoric as our captain didn't start too well at the Tirreno, loosing time in the prologue and finishing outside the Top 10 on the selective stage 2. Also on the further stages he couldn't do a lot besides defending white and a Top15. He would finish the race in 11th and the white jersey, riding quietly. Also a very disappointing race from our hill depth. Highlight of the race certainly was Riccardo Riccos attack on home soil on stage 6.
1
Simone Ponzi
Hugo Boss
22h42'45
2
Jan Bakelants
Grieg - Eftel
+ 20
3
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Air France - KLM
+ 40
4
Tejay Van Garderen
T-Mobile
+ 41
5
Sean De Bie
Aegon - Lavazza
+ 1'29
11
Matej Mohoric
Isostar - Slovenje
+ 5'47
Man of the race: Riccardo Ricco Manager Satisfaction Rate: 2/10
Paris - Nice: Thomas Faiers led our breakaway squad in the race to the sea. Roman (Stage 3), Jaramillo (Stage 4) and Polanc (Stage 5) tried their luck for us, but it was for Faiers to put the first exclamation point on our race finishing close to the Top10 on the mountanious stage 5. On stage 6 he lost quite some of his GC places, but Polanc did a brilliant ride to finish 6th on the day, climbing to 17th GC/2nd KOM. On the hilly stage 7 Polanc finished his masterpiece with yet another Top 10 performance, and even better taking the polka dot jersey with brave attacking riding.
For the last stage it was about keeping positions for Faiers and Polanc. Both had a bad day loosing some places, however they maintained two very solid GC positions in 14th and 16th. Everything else was a bonus.
1
Rein Taaramäe
T-Mobile
25h46'05
2
Andy Schleck
EA Vesuvio
+ 1'31
3
Tiago Machado
Porto - Prio
+ 3'51
4
Robert Gesink
Berg Cycles
+ 4'14
5
Justo Tenorio
Desigual
+ 4'43
14
Thomas Faiers
Isostar - Slovenje
+ 9'34
16
Jan Polanc
Isostar - Slovenje
+ 9'37
Man of the race: Jan Polanc Manager Satisfaction Rate: 9.5/10
Classique du Grand-Duché: Our main squad of the triple header went over to Luxembourg for the big hilly classic. After last years success, we decided to go (almost) all in and send Simon Spilak here, being the big favourite alongside Toms Skujins. However, despite a strong team effort he failed to position himself properly for the final hill.
While Wyss and Kump dragged from the front, Spilak could not come back in time to fight for the Top 4, being best of the rest afterwards. Demare took over to beat Spilak in another stunning Evonik vs. Puma battle, while Kump and Wyss saved the day with some nice depth. Though we hoped for much more at our superstar's debut.
1
Arnaud Demare
Team Puma - SAP
5h56'05
2
Toms Skujins
Evonik - ELKO
s.t.
3
Clement Koretzky
Festina - Dexia
+ 13
4
Bruno Borges
Porto - Prio
s.t.
5
Simon Spilak
Isostar - Slovenje
s.t.
8
Marko Kump
Isostar - Slovenje
s.t.
16
Marcel Wyss
Isostar - Slovenje
+ 54
Man of the race: Marko Kump Manager Satisfaction Rate: 3/10
After a year with ups and downs, the 2018 season is streaming towards its closing stages. While predictions towards the newly promoted team ranked from relegation candidates to as high as outside title contenders, the reality proved to be slightly different.
It wasn't that easy to get the season rolling. Kump, Polanc, Mohoric: All 3 did a good job of pushing themselves, but they didn't bring the big fish home. However, all 3 proved to be vital PT scorers, which led to proud faces in the offices in Ptuj. Those guys were the backbone to the promotion push, and sustained their level against even tougher opponence.
And the same goes for the promotion depth alumni. With the surprising exemption of Navardauskas, many of the promotion heroes, the hybrid #meninlime, helped their new teams. Be it Jerome Giaux leading his sprinters at Carrefour to victories. Be it Luis Mansilla sprinting like he has never done before at GTs for Evonik. Be it Stan "the Man" Bazhkou tearing down tt races with a twist in PCT to help the awesome Xero Racing to avoid relegation. Be it Matthias Brändle to top the PpW standings in PCT to lift Spar - Shimano up to the highest division. Be it Lukas Pibernik scoring over 200 points at min wage for the promotion push of the close Slovenian friends Swisslion. They all had their great times at Isostar, and they all kept the #meninlime creed and style of racing to success at their new homes.
But one man was the key to our successful first PT season, after back-to-back promotions. Slovenian legend Simon Spilak! At the Tour de France he almost finished his quest to win another one, only to be beaten by Rein Taaramae in a close battle under dubious circumstances. However, with Lombardia left, Spilak could possibly crown his year with a big win.
With his points the team could steer into a safe Adriatic harbour, which may lay in the Top 10 of the rankings. As a team that solely relies on Slovenian captains, the team would be delighted to finish on another stellar place after back-to-back promotion.
As many of the goals of the team have been fulfilled, the team management is delighted to announce the continuation of the lead sponsorship by Isostar Slovenija! The presentation of Slovenian cycling to the global cycling world has been executed to the satisfaction of our slovenian sponsors, hence also many of the minor sponsors will continue. Long term partners like Adriatic will stay on board, while also newer ones like Perutnina Ptuj are willing to continue the job.
However, there are rumours that new partners are willing to join. General Manager Robert Kranjec, part of the new team around Matej Mugerli that will completely stay on board in 2019, has been sighted at several events with potential new partners. That message goes in line with a recent statement of Mr. Kranjec, claiming that "the team will further look into ways to increase the funds for the upcoming season". Kranjec also stated that the management is not shy of cooperations with further international partners, as long as it fits to the team's identity and works well with the current sponsors.
A great, almost seamless transition to PT for Isostar this season. Also great so see all the Slovenian leaders add to the success.
If more funds come in I can see this team continue going from strength to strength
I like Stan the Man as a nickname. in review of his great season i want to give another one of your alumnis a nickname: thank you for releasing *bruce buffer voice on: Luis "The Killer" Mansilla
Great pt debut season for our friends in lime! Really looking forward to the offseason. Will the team find another golden generation of slovenian talents in FA or will they target foreign stars to push further up in the ranking? Considering Spilaks age that will be sth to keep a close eye on
It's been so so cool to see you thrive in PT as we knew you would, can't wait to see your next moves. Thanks for the Stan the Man shoutout, he's hit a new level with us but that's only down to his pre-existing lime magic, we're proud to have him continuing his legacy of awesomeness here at Xero
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
I still feel like your could have made even more from this season. You might still be in the run for top 5, but it will be difficult with quite some riders to pass - but if I put my team up against yours I would put yours ahead easily.
Coquard is obviously a better sprinter than Kump, but they shouldn't but heads too often given Kumps different qualities. But yeah, Coquard is the better pointscorer here of course.
Looking at all teams I believe you should be around 4-5th overall - but that is just positive. Your team have even more to build from, and because they didn't nail everything you should have some financial room to change the team a bit - and with quite a few unmaxed riders too I believe you should be one to watch next season. Quite possible a podium contender!
@redordead: Thank you very much for your support! With your team close to promotion, I hope we can together promote Slovenian and Balcan cycling in the upcoming seasons
@knockout: More like the killa, but I prefer Luis Tequila Mansilla after his lacklustre performances in the lime shirts I can certainly tell you that we are looking at both options, and maybe, just maybe, we'll find a way to add both elements in the upcoming offseason
@jandal7: The love you share for Stan is highly appreciated! I can't wait to see them either, but the office will be busy as usual the closer transfer season comes.
@SotD: I agree on that scoring potential. I think the key to a better season with chances to go higher correlate with the performance of Marco Kump. While Spilak and Mohoric delivered well (despite when they were racing together, PCM didn't like this partnership sadly), Kump could've well scored double his points in my opinion. While he certainly was unlucky for most of his season, especially comparing him to guys like van der Lijke, I didn't maximise his planning opportunities. In hindsight it was a mistake to send him to ToNE instead of Balcans, but he should've been a top 5 candidate there. Also he clashed a lot with Ciolek and rode as 3rd hill option, but was misused by PCM in that regard. Also, perhaps my biggest failure this offseason (besides selling Brändle, which was necessary for roleplay Kump training), I didn't manage to keep his good PCT support as I focussed on a team for Spilak and developing Slovenian domestiques. Guys like Korosec, Kalaba, Groselj and Rumac would've worked very well with him, if they were already maxed. I clearly underestimated the importance of good support for a (punchy) sprinter eventhough he was never going to have a train. If Kump will be our lead sprinter next season, I'll surely work on that.
However with Kump I'd also love to see him on PCT level (full role play move due to my love for the Arrow from Dolenjska of course), where he would absolutely dominate with the training I had to give him. Whether that will be next season or the season after is yet to be decided though, and will also depend on the free agency class next season.
Also I feel like the combinations of riders were not composed perfectly, as I learned the harsh way that going for a lot of hybrid riders does not really help you in PT. Indeed it was mostly a guy like Brändle and a better second stage racer that I was missing.
I think our teams were fairly equal in scoring abilities, though you outplayed me this season by better planning and composure of the team. However I'll be back to try and turn that around next season, if I decide to go on the attack in transfer season. But as said, it could also be a lot of talent investment, especially with the right Slovenian class that have a golden generation in the year of 1998. Then I'll have to find creative ways of avoiding relegation I guess
After a horrible outing at Lombardia, Isostar Slovenija finishes their season without advancing their stands in the rankings as they hoped for. In what well could've been the last race in the lime colours for some of the vital riders of the team, Spilak was the best rider of the team outside the Top10.
This closes a season where on the one side Isostar showed some consistency in their leader performance, but on the same time faced the lack of experience on the very highest level except for Simon Spilak. While Mohoric had his ups and downs, the rookie management failed to create the necessary support for Marko Kump. On the upside, Jan Polanc did a stellar job as the 4th option for the young Slovenian squad.
The title went to Puma, once again seeing Moser denied in second. They should possibly be able to strike back next season though. Festina finished in third, while before Lombardia they were even heavily considered to be overtaken by Isostar, which failed to use the mountains on the road in their favour. Hence the young Isostar squad finished 9th, directly behind close friends of Evonik.
Finishing only 500 points ahead of 16th placed Aegon showed the urgent need of stepping up the game for the upcoming seasons for Isostar. Especially since Simon Spilak will hit the decline next season already. Very strong PCT teams rising up will make it even more difficult to sustain position in the PT.
Final PT Standings
Team
Total
PpRD
1
1
Team Puma - SAP
8410
44,03
2
2
Moser - Sygic
7395
38,72
3
4
Festina - Dexia
6316
33,07
4
3
EA Vesuvio
6292
32,94
5
7
Gazelle
6180
32,36
6
6
Air France - KLM
6158
32,24
7
8
T-Mobile
6157
32,24
8
5
Evonik - ELKO
6118
32,03
9
9
Isostar Slovenija
5968
31,25
10
13
Hugo Boss
5832
30,53
11
10
Bennelong - Mitchelton
5700
29,84
12
12
Aker - MOT
5667
29,67
13
11
eBuddy
5615
29,4
14
14
RBC Pro Cycling
5522
28,91
15
16
Grieg - Eftel
5496
28,77
16
15
Aegon - Lavazza
5494
28,76
17
17
Team Tinkoff
4685
24,53
-
-
-
-
-
-
18
18
Team UBS
4681
24,51
19
19
Desigual
4507
23,6
20
20
Porto - Prio
4313
22,58
21
21
Volvo acc. by Spotify
4127
21,61
22
22
Berg Cycles
4067
21,29
Once again Sam Bewley took the individual crown. However, Simon Spilak won the individual battle against Rein Taaramae. With an outrageous amount of more race days though (stuff that may should be fixed!?), Silvio Herklotz could stream past both of them and placed himself top of the stage racers.
Second best scorer of the team was Matej Mohoric, very much benefitting from his u25 points. That made him score 10th best of all puncheurs in the game. He did very well to justify his wage, mostly due to his scoring on youth jerseys and his great hill support however.
Third place in scoring goes to Marko Kump. He had a difficult season, not only by scoring a third of Arnaud Demare or half of Michal van Stayen, but also by being outscored by riders like Grosu or van der Lijke that in comparison to their average should score significantly worse. He finished far lower than his average suggests, which shines a bad line on last years huge average rise for punchy sprinters.
Jan Polanc on the other hand had a stellar season. We expect the young Slovenian to not be able to repeat the season, still we are delighted with his success and our only overperformer this season. Great job!
Our supporting cast in the mountains stroke far away from the targeted points. Faiers and Ricco could only receive an accumulated 400 points, and were mainly blocked for AI reasons not letting them go on the attack. Kratochvila and Pernsteiner did very well in their hybrid supporting role and combined for 350 points. Wyss and Bratashcuk added a reasonable 270 points as veteran hill support.
Of our young riders it was surprisingly Ziga Groselj and Martin Laas who hit the 100 points mark. The pair of them was able to connect on good supportive points. All other talents focused mostly on development and did well in doing so.
Final Individual Standings
1
Sam Bewley
NZL
Moser - Sygic
2657
2
Silvio Herklotz
GER
Team Puma - SAP
2332
3
Simone Ponzi
ITA
Hugo Boss
2327
4
Simon Spilak
SLO
Isostar Slovenija
2110
5
Edvald Boasson Hagen
NOR
Air France - KLM
2053
26
Matej Mohoric
SLO
Isostar Slovenija
945
47
Marko Kump
SLO
Isostar Slovenija
692
62
Jan Polanc
SLO
Isostar Slovenija
550
127
Thomas Faiers
GBR
Isostar Slovenija
226
162
Jakub Kratochvila
CZE
Isostar Slovenija
179
176
Hermann Pernsteiner
AUT
Isostar Slovenija
170
184
Riccardo Ricco
ITA
Isostar Slovenija
163
188
Marcel Wyss
SWI
Isostar Slovenija
156
251
Andrii Bratashcuk
UKR
Isostar Slovenija
110
264
Martin Laas
EST
Isostar Slovenija
105
274
Ziga Groselj
SLO
Isostar Slovenija
103
303
Marko Pavlic
SLO
Isostar Slovenija
90
360
Daniel Alexander Jaramillo
COL
Isostar Slovenija
73
410
Rok Korosec
SLO
Isostar Slovenija
60
416
Aleksandar Roman
SER
Isostar Slovenija
59
420
Xhuliano Kamberaj
ALB
Isostar Slovenija
59
434
Dusan Kalaba
SER
Isostar Slovenija
51
462
Josip Rumac
CRO
Isostar Slovenija
35
466
Domen Novak
SLO
Isostar Slovenija
32
In the PCT season David Per had another stellar ride with the team of Philips - Continental. We hope that he now is ready to add some quality to the highest level of cycling, our PT cast. Finishing in the Top100 as a lvl 3 loanee is as impressive as it gets to say the least, hopefully that translates to PT level.
Congratulations on a successful first season in the PT, having secured the Top 10 place. I know you were hoping for a higher finish but I think you did excellently with just a Slovenian core of leaders. I'll try to report less of your races going ahead
David Per will be making his way back to his owners next season. All I say is thank you for letting us have him for two season It'll be a damn difficult job replacing him!
Congrats on a good first season, which could have gone even better with some more luck here and there - and/or experience with the division. I'm looking forward to seeing you build from here to the next season.
Spilak should still be among the top 3 riders in the game even after declining, as his pot of 7 helps him stay on his A game for longer!
On the comment on Herklotz I do feel like the 6 added racedays for him is justified though. Comparing him to Taaramäe he is worse in every single stat except for cobble, sprint, fighter and downhill. Also significantly worse than Spilak, although he has a higher acceleration. But here worse in cobbled, similar i sprints and then again better in fighter and downhill - and similar in prologue. So if he was to have almost similar racedays he would be hit quite hard I'd imagine. Had cio been foolish enough to let Herklotz ride the Tour rather than the Vuelta he wouldn't have been higher than Taaramäe and Spilak - both of which could have also profited from not fighting eachother for the biggest points.
On your team. I think you are a bit harsh on your setup around Kump. Landing him at 700 points is pretty good for a 81 sprinter, even if he has 77HI. He can't match Demare or van Stayen and such he would often be matched against sprinters such as Grosu, Bewley, Degenkolb, Swift etc. who are all decent going over hills aswell.
100 points below van der Lijke shouldn't be seen as a lost battle imo, but rather van der Lijke being luckier and perhaps having a better calender for performing slightly better. Also Vesuvio put a bit more faith in him than you probably did, with Gastauer riding a pretty different calender, while you often had Mohoric in the same races I suspect. Also having a rider like Martin Reimer as leadout is pretty wicked. The fact that van der Lijke and Reimer is worth the same as Kump only shows that training factors haven't been taken into account yet.
I believe you did extremely well getting Mohoric this close to the 1000 points mark while having Spilak lead in some of his potential high-scoring races. IMO this might have been a mistake though, as I would rather have used Spilak in Tasmania which he already podiumed twice (2016 and 2017 if I'm not mistaken. This season he would have been the biggest favorite for the win, which could have given something like 400-500 points if he took a couple of stagepodiums, the win and winning the points jersey - maybe even combined with team GC.
So still a bit of learning curve in terms of maximizing efforts I think - while it's really mostly down to being lucky too!
Polanc did amazingly well for you which is nice to see, but I think you could have done better with Faiers. Especially not letting him ride TONE is - for me a big mistake as he has shown in the past that he can get top 20 while helping his leaders. But this is minor things and maybe a matter of 20-50 points in total. I'm very surprised that you didn't manage to find more points to Ricco though. Maybe you have used him a bit too much in the hills rather than the mountainous GC races in order to maximize his pointscoring? 74 racedays and 78MO, 76HI with good backup stats incl. FL Should have given something close to 250points I'd say. Even with his low ACC. Him behind Pernsteiner and Kratochvila and close to Wyss isn't ideal.
Having said all of this above crap, I fancy your team a lot and your chances for further succes even more! You have already built an extremely strong core for the future, and spending training money wisely in the future could bring you the title sooner rather than later I think! I really like seeing a team well put together like this and with some interesting riders coming up through the developments I believe the change from Spilak to no-Spilak should go well for you. If I could make it work with Koretzky and Lecuisinier I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to do it with Mohoric and Novak. Spilak should work as a 1700-2200 pointscorer for the next two seasons!
Mind you that you have a huge opportunity to score well in U25 GC if you plan your team after it in the coming 2 seasons!
Croatia14 wrote:
With an outrageous amount of more race days though (stuff that may should be fixed!?), Silvio Herklotz could stream past both of them and placed himself top of the stage racers.
@Abhishek: Thank you very much! Yeah I think the team did well in promoting Slovenian Cycling, as we tried our first season as some sort of a national team. Can a team like this sustain in the PT? We've seen it now. Can a team like this reach for the stars and a title? Doubtful yet.
As said it has been an honor to have had Per riding in your colors and supporting your awesome team development.
@cio93: oh come on cio
@SotD: First of all I love your in-depth analysis of my team! Not Top 3 for Spilak maybe, but Top5-10 surely. Kump has a good acceleration in comparison however, which should have really helped him over hills especially looking at f.e. Borges' season. I think though that he may benefit from the change, and that he'll be a little more lucky with a better leadout and possibly a different hill set-up.
On the Spilak race day theme: That was one of the hardest decisions: Tasmania or 2 hilly classics. As the cut would've been made at Lombardia and Liege this may would've been a good idea in hindsight. Both of those races should've definitely had some sort of MO influence, especially Lombardia, which just wasn't there. If those races would've had proper racing it would've offered a great point scoring opportunity I didn't want to miss for Spilak. Tasmania was not a given win either due to Acc concerns, and guys like Phinney, Taaramae,... could've done well there.
Thank you very much for the nice words on Polanc and Mohoric! To Faiers I honestly don't see the benefit of him going there over Mountain races. With the lack of Mo leaders besides Spilak I had way better captains for ToNE than for second tier Mountain races. But yeah, the GTs with Ricco and/or Faiers in the lead were a no-show, cause for some reason those wouldn't even try to attack the race while slipping in the GC. Ricco sadly didn't work in any set-up, so it just wasn't to be.
I agree on the future possibilities. Novak doesn't have star potential due to his back-ups though, but I think he'll become a very good second option for the squad in the mountains. It will take some time though. Until then I hope I can get some star potential in the mountains in to replace Spilak. For Mohoric it'll be very interesting to see how he can translate his game to the 2018 game. Surely he's the logical option for training though if no big shuffle-ups will be made.
What maybe the most interesting thing about the squad is how to plan Spilak properly. With more race days he'll do Tasmania for sure, and I definitely see him racing a similar hill schedule. The question is whether there may even be a 0 GT-approach practical, looking at how his skillsets benefits hilly stages. It'll all depend on the GTs...
yeah we're proud of that 
